


The Second Blessing

by squirenonny



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: 31 Days of Sadfic, CFSWF, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mistborn trilogy spoilers, Off-screen torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 22:33:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4410365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The screams echo in TenSoon's ears long after the deed is done.</p>
<p>Written for CFSWF 2015</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Second Blessing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Max](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Max/gifts).



OreSeur’s screams echoed in his ears.

How many years had it been? And still the memory hadn’t faded. TenSoon trotted along the familiar path toward the hill in the distance. He’d returned to the wolfhound’s body, after everything. Not permanently, not with everything that needed to be done, but for this, always, he would wear these bones.

It seemed only right.

* * *

_“Why? Why, TenSoon?”_

_For a long while, this question was the only thing TenSoon had been able to draw out of OreSeur. Because of OreSeur’s stubbornness, his devotion to his Contract? Or because of TenSoon’s own guilt made him hold back?_

_“Because my master has ordered it,” TenSoon said._

_OreSeur actually smiled at that. The only explanation any kandra needed, and yet no justification at all._

_But TenSoon steeled himself and pressed harder and drew out the knowledge he needed._

* * *

Hate had driven him then, the helpless rage of a kandra under Contract. TenSoon had done awful things for his masters, but none as bad as killing OreSeur. He hated Zane for the order, hated Straff Venture for giving him to Zane, hated the Firsts and Seconds for giving him this Contract at all.

And he hated Vin for the simple fact that he was doing this to get close to her.

* * *

_OreSeur broke, eventually, and the words couldn’t come fast enough. He knew he would die, and all he wanted now was to end it as quickly as possible._

_TenSoon was grateful. Hearing OreSeur scream like that,_ making _his generation brother scream like that, had brought him as close to breaking Contract as he had ever come. With Preservation’s blessing, he would never come half so close again._

_It was almost done now. OreSeur had told TenSoon almost everything he needed to know. He spoke now of the girl TenSoon would have to serve, or at least pretend to serve. OreSeur spoke with a distaste typical of kandra discussing humans, but without hatred. She was a good enough person, he said, slow to trust and bitter over OreSeur’s actions under Contract with Kelsier, but her intentions were honest._

_Even if she had killed the Father._

_OreSeur painted the picture of a wary young woman, strong-willed and loyal, who was a kinder master than most, even if she resented the Contract she had inherited._

_Even if her last order to OreSeur—and therefore, in a way, her first to TenSoon—was to wear the bones of a wolfhound._

* * *

It had been so easy, at first, to hate Vin. In his humiliating body, with OreSeur’s screams in his head, it had been mercifully easy to hate her. He had, for a time, been glad of the chance to betray her to Zane.

For a time.

* * *

_He wasn’t sure when, exactly, his stubborn will to see the Contract through had turned into a grim satisfaction at conquering every challenge she set him; when that determination had begun to yield to respect._

_All he knew was that one night they sat atop a roof with the mists swirling around them, he looked at her and saw a brave, kind, admirable young woman instead of a brother dead for human schemes. He heard her pain and uncertainty and regret instead of OreSeur’s screams._

_He known then that he would do anything for her._

* * *

And he had. He’d broken Contract, revealed the kandra’s most closely-guarded secrets. For her. He’d gone home to face judgment and to try to sway the other kandra. For her. He’d brought Sazed back and helped him find the truth.

For her.

In the end, when he’d removed his Blessings as the First Contract demanded, he hadn’t been thinking of the Father at all, only of Vin.

TenSoon’s feet carried him out onto the Field of Rebirth, brilliant green dotted with Marewills, the hill capped by new statues of Vin and Elend, commissioned by their surviving friends. He sat at her feet, staring up into the carved face that captured some of her strength and stubbornness, though not her kindness, her compassion for a kandra trapped between duty and loyalty.

“I wanted to see you again,” he said to the statue. “I always intended to return, after I did what I had to do. I suppose you intended the same.”

They had both died, in a sense, before TenSoon had returned to her, only TenSoon had been fortunate enough to suffer a less permanent fate. It was no one’s fault, no crime that fate had called them down different paths.

Still, TenSoon regretted breaking that promise more than he’d ever regretted breaking his Contract with Zane.

Sighing, TenSoon curled up at the foot of the statue, resting his chin on his paws as he looked out over the beautiful world Vin had helped to make a reality. The brilliant colors, the warm sunshine in a clear blue sky, the laughter drifting up from the settlement just down the road—it didn’t erase the darkness that had come before. OreSeur’s screams still haunted TenSoon’s dreams.

But TenSoon had stolen two Blessings when he killed OreSeur. The Blessing of Potency, which he still carried inside his flesh, lent him strength, but the second was much more valuable. The second blessing TenSoon had stolen from his brother was, ironically, the only thing that soothed his guilt when the screams were at their worst.

He'd stolen the chance to know Vin.


End file.
